The 12 Days of ChristMES

This year, in lieu of Christmas cards MES have created our very own video carol. We had great fun making the video, and a big thanks goes out to Rob and Simon from the membership services team for putting it together. Everyone at MES would like to wish everyone watching a very merry Christmas and a happy new year!

 

A Very MES Christmas

Coming Soon - the MES Christmas video...

Digital Engagement in the NHS

As we heard in the Chancellor’s autumn statement toParliament earlier this week, austerity clearly isn’t going away anytime soonand budgets across all government departments will remain stretched for theforeseeable future. Yet within the NHS there is still a need to engage with thepublic and that work isn’t free. So in an environment where budgets are beingreduced Trusts need to look at new methods of engagement that are more costeffective. Digital engagement (using a range of digital channels to create aconversation) is one of the ways this can be achieved. As well as the potentialfinancial benefits, a possibly far more important reason for greater use ofdigital engagement is that it allows the NHS to engage with a much wider poolof the population. Traditional methods of engagement can only work so far;digital engagement allows Trusts to reach out to those normally excluded andhear from a wider sector of the public, patients and service users.

Social Media

While social media is becoming increasingly common in theprivate sector, the public sector has been a little slow to catch up. And whilemost NHS organisations have some form of social media presence, it’s not alwaysused in the most effective way. Research conducted by Pew has found that as ofAugust 2012 69% of adults with an internet connection used social media – withFacebook being the most popular. The figures for young people are much higher.As a result it seems obvious that the NHS should be using social media as a keypart of its engagement work with the public, especially when it comes to youngpeople.

At MES we’re trying to make it easier for Trust’s to usesocial media (in this case Twitter and Facebook) by integrating them directlyinto our membership database. So as well as recording traditional communicationmethods they can now record members’ social media contacts. With thisinformation they can then directly communicate with their members via these twosocial networks. Whether it’s updating their Facebook status or tweeting attheir members, it takes just a matter of seconds to use the tools we’ve builtto start the conversation.

Email

But of course digital engagement is not just about socialmedia. Trusts have traditionally sent out newsletters to their members on aquarterly basis and this is a great way of keeping them up-to-date on recentdevelopments. However it can be very costly, especially for the larger Trustswhere their membership can be over 20,000. So many Trusts are moving towards email distribution, or hosting thenewsletter online.  If Trusts are unsureabout uploading a standard PDF to their website there are plenty of servicesavailable (such as scribd.com) where a digital version of a newsletter can becreated that makes the online reading experience much more satisfying.

 

Whichever channels the NHS ends up using, digitalengagement needs to form a central element of how the health servicecommunicates and engages with the wider public over the next few years.

Seasonal Membership Recruitment

 

As we head well and truly into the Christmas period, we are seeing more and more members of the public signing up to become members of Foundation Trusts. This week MES has been working alongside the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust and the Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent Partnership NHS trust with brand new members getting involved from Bristol to Tamworth!